Newtown cold case murder trial to start this week

Published 5:28 pm, Saturday, September 21, 2013

John Heath, the man accused of killing his wife in 1984 and then burying her body below the floorboards of their Newtown home, listens to court proceedings Tuesday, July 16, 2013. Tuesday is the first day of jury selection for the case in the Danbury, Conn. Superior Court. less

John Heath, the man accused of killing his wife in 1984 and then burying her body below the floorboards of their Newtown home, listens to court proceedings Tuesday, July 16, 2013. Tuesday is the first day of ... more

John Heath, 70, the man accused of killing his wife in 1984 and then burying her body below the floorboards of their Newtown home, listens to court proceedings Tuesday, July 16, 2013. Tuesday was the first day of jury selection for the case in the Danbury, Conn. Superior Court. less

John Heath, 70, the man accused of killing his wife in 1984 and then burying her body below the floorboards of their Newtown home, listens to court proceedings Tuesday, July 16, 2013. Tuesday was the first day ... more

John Heath, 70, the man accused of killing his wife in 1984 and then burying her body below the floorboards of their Newtown home, smiles during a light moment in court proceedings Tuesday, July 16, 2013. Tuesday was the first day of jury selection for the case in the Danbury, Conn. Superior Court. less

John Heath, 70, the man accused of killing his wife in 1984 and then burying her body below the floorboards of their Newtown home, smiles during a light moment in court proceedings Tuesday, July 16, 2013. ... more

Defense Attorney Frank O'Reilly, left, and Assistant State Attorney Warren Murray confer during the first day of jury selection in the murder trial of John Heath, far left, at the Superior Court in Danbury, Conn., Tuesday, July 16, 2013. less

Defense Attorney Frank O'Reilly, left, and Assistant State Attorney Warren Murray confer during the first day of jury selection in the murder trial of John Heath, far left, at the Superior Court in Danbury, ... more

DANBURY -- The old photograph in the case file at state Superior Court here is poorly focused and grainy, but clear enough to show a tranquil family scene, a bespectacled, bearded husband with his right arm wrapped lovingly around his brown-haired wife, who cradles their infant daughter in her left arm.

But another picture in the thick manila folder, taken three decades later, is not quite so idyllic -- a lumpy, green, plastic garbage bag on a bare concrete floor, a human femur, devoid of flesh, near it.

The leg bone is that of the woman in the first photo, Elizabeth Heath, who was last seen alive in 1984. The rest of her body, wrapped in bedclothes, is in the plastic bag.

On Wednesday, the bearded man, her husband John, will go on trial for her murder.

Now 70, in poor health and confined to a wheelchair, Heath is accused of beating his wife to death, shoving her into the bag and concealing it beneath the former dairy barn on the Poverty Hollow Road property in Newtown where they lived.

It remained there, undisturbed for 26 years, until the new owner and his son discovered it during renovations in April 2010.

In 1985, Heath married a woman who had been a friend of his wife's and lived with her and two children they had in Bridgewater.

He was arrested almost exactly two years after the body was found and has been held on $1 million bond since then.

`I'm innocent'

In July when jury selection began, prosecutor Warren Murray offered to let Heath plead guilty to murder in exchange for allowing his attorney, special public defender Frank O'Reilly, to argue for a prison term at the lower end of the 25- to 60-year range dictated by state law.

"I'm innocent. I don't want to plead guilty to anything," Heath told Judge Robin Pavia, who will preside at the trial.

A jury of 12 people, selected gradually over the past two months, will decide his fate.

In the event any of the regular jurors are unable to sit through the entire trial, which is expected to run through October, six alternates are available.

More than 80 witnesses, including dozens of Newtown and State Police officers, are on the prosecution's witness list. But not all of them are expected to testify, according to Murray.

O'Reilly said the defense case will be considerably shorter, probably lasting a few days.

Heath, a commercial painter and Vietnam veteran, reported his wife missing to Newtown police three days after he said he woke up on a Monday morning in early April 1984 and found her gone.

Also missing, he said, was $600 and a new wardrobe she'd purchased after dropping 100 pounds.

But left behind was her car, her dog, and the couple's 4-year-old daughter, Meghann.

At the time she disappeared, Elizabeth Heath was studying to become a mental health counselor.

The couple, who had been married for nearly six years, was in the early stages of divorce, but friends and family members told investigators Elizabeth Heath would never have left her daughter behind.

One former neighbor, Gillian Perry, said the child was "joined to her at the hip," according to the 27-page arrest warrant affidavit.

John Heath obtained the divorce in August 1984 and he married his current wife, Raquel, the following June.

An autopsy revealed Elizabeth Heath had been killed by four blows to the head, forceful enough to cave in her skull.

She also sustained a broken left arm, the result of an attempt to ward off her attacker.

But most of the prosecution's case is circumstantial, lacking the kind of forensic evidence that would conclusively tie a suspect to the crime.

"Time and environmental factors had a definite effect on what we could do," Newtown Police Chief Michael Kehoe said.

Much of the potential forensic evidence had degraded over the years the body lay hidden, making it impossible to recover DNA, the chief said.

Any lengthy prison term would likely be a life sentence for Heath, who suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and uses a portable oxygen tank to help him breathe. He has been treated for pneumonia eight times since he was incarcerated, O'Reilly said.

Nearly 30 years since Elizabeth Heath was last seen alive, the trial for her murder is scheduled to begin Wednesday morning in the courthouse on White Street.